Earth Ideas
23 episodes - English - Latest episode: over 3 years ago -These are long-form, unscripted interviews with Academics, Scientists & Journalists about their areas of research.
Forming a series of in-depth conversations with fascinating people, with loads to say about the current state of the world, everything that came before us, and everything that could be still to come.
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Episodes
How Special Is The Earth? | with Dr Elizabeth Tasker | PODCAST #21
December 11, 2020 06:00 - 57 minutes - 53.2 MBDr Elizabeth Tasker is an astrophysicist who studies exoplanets: extra-solar planets - those worlds that exist, function and potentially support life outside of our own solar system. We talked about methods & theories in discovering and learning about exoplanets, the search for a planet similar to Earth, and the very exciting near future of space technologies & discoveries. 0:00 Elizabeth's career journey 9:51 First exoplanet discovery 17:00 Detecting their compositions 29:24 ...
What Can Indigenous Languages Teach Us? | with Dr Lindsay Morcom | PODCAST #20
November 26, 2020 16:00 - 47 minutes - 44.4 MBDr Lindsay Morcom (Ardoch Algonquin First Nation) is a linguist and researcher of aboriginal languages and teaching. She works actively in language revitalisation techniques and advocates for decolonising education. Indigenous languages hold knowledge, histories & ways of thinking about their lands and culture that do not easily translate into western vocabularies and, as hundreds of languages die out every year, people like Lindsay work to make sure they are received by their heirs. 0:0...
How Do We Understand The Brain? | with Prof Matthew Cobb (PART 2) | PODCAST #19.5
November 17, 2020 12:00 - 33 minutes - 77.4 MBProf Matthew Cobb is a zoologist and researcher into animal behaviours through their sense of smell (including ours!) On the side, he explores further his work in science with writing books on the history of science. His newest, The Idea Of The Brain: A History, explores how we come to define & thus attempt to understand the brain and all its complexities, and how we must continually reinvent our approach to doing as we learn more & more about how the brain works. We talked about historica...
What Is Smelling? | with Prof Matthew Cobb (PART 1) | PODCAST #19
November 12, 2020 15:00 - 1 hour - 139 MBProf Matthew Cobb is interested in animal behaviour & psychology, and seeks his answers through research into the sense of smell. We talked about what effect Covid could be having which is causing a loss of smell and taste, how smell differs across the diversity of life, and what looking into smell can tell us about the effects of today's anthropogenic changes. 0:00 COVID & loss of smell 14:30 Can you regain loss of smell? 18:20 How do you study smell? 30:35 Pheromones 40:50 Gl...
Space Weather: Predicting The Sun's Seasons | with Dr Robert Wicks | PODCAST #18
October 28, 2020 08:00 - 1 hour - 164 MBDr Robert Wicks is a space physicist and specialist in natural and man-made hazards in our solar system. He is part of the team behind the ESA Solar Orbiter mission which aims to gather data about our sun's solar wind and polar regions, to better understand its magnetic fluctuations or 'seasons.' We talked about space weather, the newest attempts to predict it (like Solar Orbiter), and the risks posed by the solar storms & coronal mass ejections that we currently can't well predict. We ...
Microbes Living In Extreme Environments | with Dr Aparna Banerjee | PODCAST #17
October 20, 2020 16:33 - 1 hour - 138 MBDr Aparna Banerjee is a microbiologist who works in the field of extremophiles - microbes who live & thrive in extreme environments. She's currently working on microbes that live in the Andean Hot Springs, and has previously studied those living in freezing Antarctic temperatures. We talked about extremophile methods for survival, and then went on to talk about her work in levelling the STEM playing field for women and hard-to-reach would-be scientists. 0:00 Chile's Atacama Desert 6:12...
How Does An Ant Colony Live? | with Prof Deborah Gordon | PODCAST #16
October 08, 2020 17:03 - 1 hour - 148 MBIf you found this episode valuable, please support me with caffeine to keep them coming https://www.buymeacoffee.com/lauramahler :) Prof Deborah Gordon is a biologist at Stanford University and a world expert in the function and survival of ant colonies. Her research uses ant colonies to investigate and design other systems that also operate without central control such as the internet, the immune system, and the brain. She is also concerned with how ants are adapting their behaviour in t...
How The Potato Changed The World | with Prof Rebecca Earle | PODCAST #15
October 01, 2020 09:07 - 1 hour - 143 MBProfessor Rebecca Earle is an historian of food & culture and is interested in all things of the everyday life of ordinary people - how their choices & activities have shaped and affected the global experience. She has written 2 whole books on the POTATO and how its glorious palatability in all kinds of dishes, and its brilliant caloric offering for a low land & water usage, changed the lives of people from Peru to China. We talk about her determination to shine the light of history away fr...
The Friendliness Of Dogs - And Humans! | with Dr Brian Hare | PODCAST #14
September 24, 2020 16:00 - 1 hour - 145 MBDr Brian Hare is an evolutionary anthropologist, founder of the Duke University Canine Cognition Center and NYT bestselling author of The Genius Of Dogs. His new book, Survival Of The Friendliest, challenges the famous notion of 'survival of fittest' and proposes that it is in fact our (and our domesticated companions') friendliness & cooperation that lead to our massive success as a species. 0:00 Why should we study animal psychology? 5:35 Physical changes in domestication 12:13 Anth...
The Extraodinary 500 Million Year History Of Cephalopods | with Dr Danna Staaf | PODCAST #13
September 16, 2020 16:27 - 1 hour - 186 MBDr Danna Staaf is a marine biologist, science writer, and powerhouse expert on cephalopods, who's on a mission to bring them the fame and wonderment they deserve. 0:00 Danna's career beginnings 5:00 Have we forgotten about Cephalopods? 9:49 Evolution of Cephalopod intelligence 19:08 The shell question 28:14 Surviving mass extinctions 35:11 Ability to adapt 42:50 What do we have in common? 49:54 Cephalopod brains 56:14 Variety of life on Earth 1:13:24 The $.5bn Question T...
Talking With A Wildlife Disease Expert In 2020 | with Dr Andy Dobson | PODCAST #12
September 15, 2020 16:00 - 1 hour - 160 MBAndrew Dobson is a Professor of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology at Princeton University, and an expert in wildlife disease. Though disease is a part of everyday life, his research specifically focuses on infectious diseases in endangered & fragile ecosystems, including the Serengeti, Yellowstone & the world's rainforests, to better understand the risks that are posed to animals & humans as an environment is altered. 0:00 Biodiversity is today's scientific question 5:01 The study of Ecol...
Changing The Way We Think About Change | with Dr Leyla Acaroglu | PODCAST #11
September 15, 2020 07:00 - 1 hour - 140 MBDr Leyla Acaroglu is an award-winning designer, 2016 UNEP Champion of the Earth, and founder of Disruptive Design Agency & the UnSchool. She is a powerhouse of innovation - a self-styled 'sustainability provocateur', who works to use design- and systems-thinking to activate social change. 0:00 Leyla's start in Product Design 9 :50 Humanity's newest challenge 15:46 The power to change something 23:36 Recycling validates waste 32:10 How products design us 42:42 Leyla's UNEP Anatom...
How To Feed The Planet PART 2: Profits | with Sue Pritchard | PODCAST #10 PART 2
September 14, 2020 18:36 - 1 hour - 156 MBSue Pritchard sits on one side of a challenge that has divided all who are aware of it - How to feed everyone fairly on a planet with finite resources? As CEO of the Food, Farming and Countryside Commission, and a farmer herself, she works for a regenerative, smaller-scale agricultural future, and seeks to make radical changes in the way we & all the different industries involved think about our food. In PART 1, we discussed agri-tech & the work of the Lincoln Institute for Agri-Food Tech...
How To Feed The Planet PART 1: Agri-Tech | with Prof. Simon Pearson | PODCAST #10 PART 1
September 14, 2020 18:21 - 57 minutes - 132 MBProfessor Simon Pearson sits on one side of a challenge that has divided all who are aware of it - How to feed everyone fairly on a planet with finite resources? As Director of the Lincoln Institute for Agri-Food Technology, he is embedded in emerging research into agri AI, robotics, gene-editing & circular agricultural economics, among many other exciting new ideas at the cusp of science. This is PART 1 of talking about this debate. Watch PART 2 from the camp who call for more nature-alig...
Why Killings Of Environmental Defenders Are Increasing | with Dr Mary Menton | PODCAST #9
September 09, 2020 08:30 - 1 hour - 179 MBDr Mary Menton is a Research Fellow in Environmental Justice at University of Sussex and part of team behind Not1More, a campaign group which supports frontline environmental defenders and investigates the root causes of environmental conflict. Individuals & groups facing up against powerful corporations invading & obliterating their homes for profit are being killed at an increasing rate around the world, and Mary is one of the key people bringing the guilty to justice. We talked about...
Venom: How It Got Here & Why We Actually Want It | with Dr Michel Dugon | PODCAST #8
September 09, 2020 08:30 - 1 hour - 187 MBDr Michel Dugon aka The Bug Doctor is a leading expert in the development and evolution of venom systems, predation strategies and prey detection in venomous invertebrates. He is also at the forefront of research into how venom can be applied in medicine in a multitude of avenues from antimicrobial resistance to anticancer and treating arthritis. We talked about the variations of venom across species & families, and their different (but ultimately equal!) paths to venom. We then spoke a...
How To Predict The Loss Of Coral Reefs | with Dr Les Kaufman | PODCAST #7
September 09, 2020 08:30 - 1 hour - 189 MBDr Les Kaufman is a marine biologist & coral reef expert. He's been at the forefront of trying to understand how these really complex & unique ecosystems can flourish in the colourful, glorious way they do for over 40 years. And now he puts his time & energy into clinging on by the fingernails for their preservation. We talked about how and where Corals live, and the ecosystems they host (50% of all fishes!). We then spoke about the anthropological dangers facing them, and differences acr...
Elephant Intelligence & Behaviour | with Dr Lisa Yon | PODCAST #6
September 09, 2020 08:30 - 1 hour - 225 MBDr Lisa Yon is an expert in captive animal welfare and works to improve the lives of and our understanding of wildlife living in captive & semi-captive homes around the world. She specialises in elephant intelligence & behaviour, and clearly loves them dearly. She serves on the board of many incredible organisations in the conservation world, including Frozen Ark - a global mission to cryogenically preserve endangered and ecosystem-critical species. We talked about how elephants navigate...
Do We Need Geoengineers To Save Us? | with Thomas Kostigen | PODCAST #5
September 09, 2020 08:30 - 54 minutes - 124 MBThomas Kostigen is an environmental journalist and author of over 10 books on environmental issues. His latest, 'Hacking Earth', the informant of this episode, is a global tour of geoengineering research & technologies (big & small, futuristic & already happening) that might be our only means of survival on this planet as humans continue to destroy ecosystems and warm it over 1.5C. We talked about levels and growth of engineering over the millenia of human civilisation, examples of some ...
Bees - experiencing their world | with Dr Jeri Wright | PODCAST #4
September 09, 2020 08:29 - 1 hour - 219 MBDr Jeri Wright is an insect neuroethologist whose lab investigates the interrelationship of plants and bees, and how bees sense and learn about the world around them. She works to understand how bees detect food, and how they know what nutrients they need and seek those out, and how other (sometimes unwanted) compounds affect them. We talked first about bee senses and cognition - their memory, their propensity to addiction, and cooperation as a Hive. We then moved on to what anthropologic...
Make Documentaries To Save The World | with Jon Bowermaster | PODCAST #3
September 09, 2020 08:29 - 52 minutes - 121 MBJon Bowermaster is a documentary filmmaker, environmental activist and National Geographic Explorer. He's made environmental films on all 7 continents & the oceans, and his most recent 'Ghost Fleet' looks at human trafficking in the fishing industry, and is just absolutely beautifully captured, shockingly told and memorable. We talked about the issues Jon's work (namely, Hudson River Stories & Oceans8) focuses on - threats facing the oceans & waterways, and what people are doing about i...
Is Air Pollution Just Completely Different Now? | with Beth Gardiner | PODCAST #2
September 09, 2020 08:28 - 1 hour - 182 MBIf you found this episode valuable, please support me with caffeine to keep them coming https://www.buymeacoffee.com/lauramahler :) Beth Gardiner is a journalist and author of Choked: Life and Breath in the Age of Air Pollution. It was a real eye opener to talk to Beth given the way COVID-19 has affected our output of air pollution globally, and also how air pollution is affecting our ability to fight the disease. Air pollution is another killer that hangs ferociously in the air for us to ...
What Would Happen If We All Just Disappeared? | with Alan Weisman | PODCAST #1
September 09, 2020 08:28 - 1 hour - 171 MBIf you found this episode valuable, please support me with caffeine to keep them coming https://www.buymeacoffee.com/lauramahler :) Alan Weisman is an environmental journalist and best-selling author of The World Without Us - and imaginative thought-experiment of what would happen to planet earth if we humans were to all disappear - and Countdown - telling the tale of quite the opposite: at what point will there be just too many of us for the earth to sustain? It was absolutely brilliant ...